


Smitten

by jellybeanforest



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 3490
Genre: Cap-Ironman Bingo, Cap_Ironman Tiny Reverse Bang, Coffee Run, F/M, Female!Tony Stark, Getting Together, Mutual Pining, Rated for swearing, Rhodey gives Steve the shovel talk, Tasha can take care of herself, but mostly in the sense that he'll be on standby in case Tasha needs to bury a body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Steve always brings his crush and fellow Avenger, Iron Woman, her morning coffee: a pumpkin swirl iced latte. It’s both a ritual and an excuse for small talk, even if he knows nothing can come of it. She’s a coworker, almost a subordinate, and he’s pretty sure it’s against S.H.I.E.L.D. policy to fraternize with team members, even if she’s not exactly on the payroll. Plus, as a gorgeous genius billionaire philanthropist, she has her pick of men, so it’s not like she’d be interested in him anyway.And then Rhodey takes him aside and drops a bombshell: Tasha is actually lactose intolerant. She tolerates his terrible taste in coffee because she likes him.For the 2020 Cap-IronMan Tiny Reverse Bang and Cap-IronMan Bingo 2020 Round 2 – Bold. Based on a prompt (INVINCIBLE) by Souen.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Natasha Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 28
Kudos: 290
Collections: 2020 Cap/Iron Man Tiny Reverse Bang, Captain America/Iron Man Bingo





	Smitten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Souen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [Souen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souen/pseuds/Souen). Log in to view. 



> For those that don’t know, a latte is coffee with milk.

Balancing three trays of coffee across his broad arms – two for hot and one for iced – Steve takes a deep breath and steps up to sliding doors of the lab where Tasha Stark, the Iron Woman, is recalibrating her most recent suit. The armor is a spectacular behemoth of modern engineering, almost masculine in form, its stocky shape belying the petite woman encased inside. The first time he had seen it in action fighting alongside War Machine, Steve had assumed the pilot to be a man, but when her faceplate had peeled away to reveal the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen, he had been dumbstruck, their earlier battle-worn camaraderie fizzling away into an immediate attraction… until Tasha opened her mouth and ruined the illusion by loudly and vociferously critiquing Steve’s battle plans and fighting style.

That had been months ago, and they had since overcome their differences and settled into a comfortable acquaintanceship, if not an actual friendship.

“Hi, Winghead!” she calls out to him, having signaled J.A.R.V.I.S. to turn down the ever-present AC/DC to a more tolerable volume in consideration of Steve’s sensitive hearing.

Steve nearly drops all fifteen coffees all over himself.

Instead of one of her band tees, Tasha is donning the skin-tight black undersuit that left precious little to the imagination. _She must be conducting a flight test,_ he thinks rather weakly as he tries to drum up the courage to say something, anything really.

She nearly bounces towards him. “Is that for me?” She swipes up an iced pumpkin swirl latte from the corner of the tray nearest his left pec, brushing her hand against his as she withdraws the drink. “You really shouldn’t have,” she tells him, even as she takes a sip with a sigh of exaggerated pleasure.

 _She’s doing it on purpose,_ he thinks to himself before disregarding the thought all together. Tasha is just like that, open and flirtatious with people she considered her friends, like Rhodes. Steve had thought they were an item for weeks before Tasha set him straight. And so this – whatever this is – didn’t mean anything, despite how badly Steve wished otherwise. She is gorgeous, brilliant, and funny and oh so very excruciatingly unattainable. Even if she hadn’t been a billionaire on top of everything else, Iron Woman is Captain America’s subordinate and thus entirely off-limits. It would be wrong, an abuse of his leadership position, for him to even ask.

“Your favorite,” he manages. “Do you like the extra whip cream? The cashier recommended it.”

“Hmm. I really can’t believe they serve these year-round.” She takes another sip, stirring in the sweetened cream at the top with a few jabs of her straw. “Starbucks only has pumpkin spice during the fall.”

“It is their signature beverage. Back in my day, all we had was drip coffee, an endless cup for a nickel.”

“Those really were the good old days,” she mutters enigmatically.

“I don’t know about all that; the future has its perks.” The future had Natasha Stark, after all.

She puts her drink aside. “Say, do you want to stay for the test run? The Mark XLII is almost ready, and I really put some firepower in these babies. She smacks a disassembled arm canon. What do you say?”

“I’d love to, but…” he holds up the three trays he has yet to deliver.

“Rain check then, but only because I like you.”

* * *

After leaving the lab, he continues to pass out coffee to the rest of the Avengers. He can’t be seen having favorites, after all.

He holds out the tray to War Machine, the closest corner containing his regular order. “Small coffee with two creams, two sugars?”

Rhodes accepts the proffered beverage. “I appreciate you taking over the morning drink run and all.” He takes a sip. Steve is about to tell him it’s his pleasure, to not worry about it, when the man continues, “But you know Tasha hates the coffee at Pumpkin Donuts, right?”

The admission gives Steve pause. That can’t be right.

“What are you talking about? She loves their pumpkin swirl iced lattes.”

Rhodes puts his coffee aside, giving Steve his full attention. “Okay, two things you should know about Tasha. One: she likes only the finest coffee brewed from single-origin arabica beans flown in direct from Kenya. Black. No sugar. Certainly not iced. And two: she’s lactose intolerant.”

“What? No… since when?”

“Since always, man. That’s sort of how lactose intolerance works.”

That would explain Tasha’s dislike of ice cream and her switch to a depressing culinary abomination she called “vegan cheese” for her burgers.

“But she always drinks the lattes I bring her,” Steve protests.

“She pops a lactaid every morning before you stop by on your coffee rounds.”

“That can’t be…” Steve says softly. All this time… all those lattes and enthusiastic thank-you’s, and she was faking it? She had suffered through it all? But– but why? Was it just so she could poke fun at how gullible he was with Rhodes and the others? Or had it simply gone on so long that she was too embarrassed to tell him and would rather medicate herself than risk an awkward conversation?

Only one way to find out.

“Why wouldn’t she just tell me?”

Rhodes shrugs. “Same reason you bring her a latte every morning. Because you’re both idiots with poor communication skills who think it will make the other person happy, but really one of you should just take a chance and ask the other out. And I think it should be you, because if you’re willing to jump out of a plane without a parachute, then you should be bold enough to ask a lady out,” he says matter-of-factly. He takes another sip of his coffee. “That, and Tasha thinks you’re too old-fashioned to want her to make the first move.”

Steve wouldn’t mind if she had; it would actually be much easier, but–

“…You really think she’ll say yes?”

Rhodes just sighs. He closes his eyes and massages his temple, as if to stave off a migraine. “She says yes to coffee she hates with the potential to make her physically ill, because you bought it for her. So she clearly has no sense of self-preservation.” He looks up at Steve. “Of course she’ll say yes. Maybe then she won’t call me at 2am on Saturday morning complaining about Hammer or Stone or whoever her most recent date happened to be who committed the grave offense of not being you.”

The name rings a bell. Steve narrows his eyes. “Stone? That the…”

“The asshole who printed all those salacious rumors in his papers? Yeah. He does not take rejection well. But then again, he liked the libel lawsuit even less.” Tasha had been incensed, and even if she paid her legal team more than what she could have possibly recouped from Stone, she had considered it well worth the expense.

Steve had been annoyed on her behalf, had offered to settle it the old-fashioned way, but Tasha had said Stone wasn’t worth the assault charge. Still–

“Single-origin arabica coffee from Kenya? That’s what she likes?”

“Yes, and they don’t serve that at Pumpkin Donuts.” Rhodes stands, reaching into his desk drawer to withdraw a paper print-out which he hands to Steve. He pointedly taps at various hand-drawn stars on the map of the area near the Avengers compound. “You can get it at any of these places, or they sell it online and at the specialty grocery stores here and here.” He indicates additional red dots where Steve can apparently buy high-end coffee beans by the bag. “Save yourself a few bucks and just brew a pot for the office. It’ll be cheaper than your coffee runs at any rate, and I’ll get my weekends back. Everybody wins.”

Steve looks up from the map. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because as… _entertaining_ as this has all been, I’m tired of watching you two dance around each other and listening to Tasha go on about your muscles and eyes and how conscientious you are and–”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“Look man, the simple truth is I miss the days we spent our time just hanging out at a sports bar schooling meatheads at pool because they don’t realize it’s all about the angles and women can do math,” Rhodes says flatly. “I want my best friend back in tip-top form, so do your thing, and just know… if you hurt her–”

“You’ll break my legs, got it.” Not that Rhodes would be able to, and even if he did manage to push him off a skyscraper, Steve would likely recover relatively quickly.

But Rhodes simply shakes his head. “No, no… I won’t have to do shit, man. I haven’t had to step in in years, not since MIT. Tasha can handle herself. I’m just reminding you not to piss off the woman in charge of upgrading your armor and weaponry.”

_Oh. Well…_

“Copy that,” Steve confirms as he nervously scratches the back of his neck. She wouldn’t actually–

“So, uh… have at it, I guess.” Rhodes pats his shoulder, squeezing a touch before disengaging. “You’re a braver man than most; that’s for sure.”

* * *

The following morning, Steve stops by Tasha’s lab, carrying only a single black coffee brewed from the fancy machine in the Avengers’ break room and a chocolate-dipped almond biscotti. Tasha raises a brow at the change in her regular order.

“I talked to Rhodes,” Steve says by way of explanation, his tone neutral, diplomatic. “He said you’d like this coffee a bit better.”

“Honeybear knows what I like,” she admits, accepting the offering. She takes a sip, her expression alighting with surprise. “Volcania Kenyan AA?”

“Rhodes gave me some pointers.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah…” He stands up straighter, reaching his arm back to massage the nape of his neck as he looks down, staring hard at a mark on the floor. “So, um… I was thinking… If– if you aren’t doing anything Saturday night–”

“Yes,” Tasha replies, all-too-quickly.

Steve looks up, his brow crinkled adorably in confusion. “Yes, you have plans or–”

“No, I– I mean– I’m free Saturday,” she stammers.

“Oh… So, would you like to get food? With me? Alone? There will be food.” _–Oh God, he’s fucking this up–_ “Dinner?” he finishes helplessly.

Tasha smiles, her eyes lit up in amusement. “Of course, Steve. I’d love to.”

“On a date?” he clarifies, mentally cringing, but he has to know for sure, because it will be exponentially more embarrassing if he showed up to a friendly hang-out with flowers.

“I believe that was implied.”

“It doesn’t hurt to check.”

“I suppose not.” She rolls up onto her tip-toes to plant a kiss on the man’s cheek.

Steve freezes, his face rapidly coloring as his higher brain functions seemingly shut down.

Tasha grins, turning heel to walk back towards the armor dubbed Mark XLII. It’s more complete than it had been the day before, with the arm now attached to the main body and canons retracted into the shoulders. She places the coffee and biscotti on her workstation.

“Now about that test run…”


End file.
